Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Ian Athfield - spectacular book honours outstanding architect

IAN ATHFIELD is one of New Zealand’s best, and best-known, architects. And since
1968, with his partners and team, he has built a most distinctive architectural
practice. The work of Athfield Architects encompasses a wide range of famous,
infamous and little-known projects, from the Buck House against its vineyard
rows to the expanse of Wellington’s Civic Square and waterfront, from libraries
and university buildings throughout the country to the collaboratively designed
New Zealand War Memorial in London. The phrase ‘an Athfield house’ conjures up
especially vivid images: of plastered masses, white painted, stepping up or
down precarious Wellington slopes – including Athfield’s own unfinished home
and office that sprawls over an entire Khandallah hillside.

Athfield,
an iconoclast from the beginning, shaped a firm that became known initially for
these ingenious houses. But from the late 1970s Athfield Architects partnered
with developers, leading the way through a postmodern corporate boomtime of
commercial towers, candy-bright colours and canny reuse of redundant buildings.
More recently, while continuing private and commercial work, Athfield
Architects have been reshaping public spaces in our cities – notably Wellington
– and leading dialogue about the opportunities for a rebuilt Christchurch. In
this landmark book covering half a century of work, Julia Gatley takes readers
through modernism, postmodernism and beyond. Athfield Architects shows how New
Zealand’s leading contemporary architectural firm is transforming the way
we all might live.

DR JULIA
GATLEY is a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington and the University of
Melbourne and is a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning
at the University of Auckland. She has edited two bestselling and critically
acclaimed books for Auckland University Press, Long Live the Modern: New
Zealand’s New Architecture, 1904–1984 (2008), which encouraged the heritage
recognition of New Zealand’s modern architecture, and Group Architects:
Towards a New Zealand Architecture (2010), the first full assessment of
this groundbreaking firm.

Below is a selection of photographs from the more than 600 shots in the book:

1 comment:

wade doak
said...

This book is the most enrichening volume I own. I will explore it for years It should be part of everybody's education. Besides the extraordinary insights into architecture, it is an insight into a very original, sprightly kiwi mind with enormous energy. How many NZ architects can wield a hammer and have constructed homes? Have hands on experience of new building materials while absorbing the best of the past; have developed a philosophy of human habitation that has a major bearing on our future?